Off label use of Eli Lilly drugs

I hope Eli Lilly haven't been promoting Reconcile for off label use because they have been with olanzapine (in humans). See BMJ story.

Silly thought?

Is the reason why drug companies are moving so much into the animal market because they are not making much in humans anymore?

Mad not bad

If your dog may do one or several of the following:

Chew destructively
Bark or whine
Inappropriate urination and/or defecation
Drool
Pace
Tremble
Vomit
… or worse

it is not bad but has separation anxiety.

So says Eli Lilly and company.

They reckon that "separation anxiety results when your pet becomes so upset by your absence the stress causes him to behave badly". Their own research shows that "separation anxiety affects 10.7 million or 17 percent of dogs in the United States" and that "veterinarians estimate nearly 60 percent of cases go undiagnosed". There's no academic reference for this data. For animals the findings do not seem to have to be subject to peer-review in journals before they are quoted as facts. Further evidence that animals are getting a worse deal about antidepressants than humans.

How do you reconcile this?

Eli Lilly, the manufacturers of Reconcile, state that "separation anxiety is a clinical condition in your dog's brain". Drug companies are usually more circumspect about making this claim in humans. They generally admit that the theory that mental disorders are caused by chemical imbalance is merely a hypothesis. They suggest that disorders like depression may be caused by an imbalance of chemical messengers in the brain and there may be a problem in depression with the balance of the serotonin system that affects the cell to cell communication (my emphasis). Of course, many people, both doctors and patients, go further by acting as though this hypothesis is true. Why are Eli Lilly so much more certain about this hypothesis with animals? Perhaps it doesn't matter if they are wrong. All the more reason for this campaign.

As with Clomicalm, the evidence is that Reconcile is only effective with behaviour modification. So it may not work on its own. And yet the FDA has licensed it. Doesn't the FDA understand about amplified placebo effects? Next step please to call the FDA to account.

Packaged facts

Packaged Facts say "the U.S. market for pet medications is going gangbusters ... companies are now branching out with new consumer-targeted pet medications, such as ... Eli Lilly’s Reconcile for separation anxiety." Their report only costs $3300 to download online. It's not worth that much to me.

Any information about American Pet Products Association?

American Pet Products Association

Anyone know anything about Novartis marketing strategy?

NY Times story about Pill-popping pets. The advantage of treating pets with antidepressants is that it avoids euthanasia.

New blog

Two posts on the Critical psychiatry blogspot led to this offshoot blog. One was about a parrot treated with antidepressants after its owner died. The other was about Jacques Chirac being rushed to hospital after he was bitten by his dog. It transpired that the Chirac's dog had been treated with antidepressants.

These incidents have led to the setting up of an unfunded, unaffiliated campaign. Please let me know what you see as being the key issues and become a follower of this blog.